with 40 percent added bruising. These figures indicate that additional means 
and care should be considered to lessen the bruising of apples in warehouses. 
Retailing 
Many retailers feel that since the apples they receive have numerous 
bruises it is pointless to handle the apples with additional care. This, of 
course, is not sound reasoning. Even discounting any progress by others in 
eliminating bruising, the retailer can easily bruise the apples he receives and 
thereby lower their quality, their shelf life, and their profit potential. The 
voluminous research reported in the preceding paragraphs on bruising have as 
their one main goal that the retailer shall be offered apples that are free of 
bruises, disease, and decay. If the retailer in turn fails to offer such apples 
to his customers, the efforts of all others in the apple marketing system also 
fail. Thus, the retailer, too, has an obligation to lessen bruising by his 
clerks and customers. 
In 1949, Van Waes (104) reported that when McIntosh apples were not 
handled carefully about 85 percent of them were bruised by the time they reached 
the retailer. If carefully handled thereafter, at least 10 percent more were 
bruised before the apples reached the consumer. See also p. 137. In 1957, 
Schomer (88) reported that about one-third of the apples offered in retail 
stores in Michigan and in California were badly bruised. In 1963, Perkins (79) 
reported that about two-thirds of the apples on display were bruised: 51 per- 
cent slightly, 29 percent moderately, and 20 percent severely. He thought that 
about 50 percent of the total bruising, and about 70 percent of the severe 
bruising, occurs after the apples leave the farm. Woodward (119) reported that 
nearly 25 percent additional bruising occurs while apples are on display. Much 
of this occurs as retail clerks roughly dump apples into display bins, or as 
the apples are sorted or arranged in the display, but additional bruising is 
caused by consumer handling (47, 119). ‘9/ 
Woodward (119) also reported on apples displayed by various methods in 
retail stores. He found that the bruising per 100 apples averaged: 475 bruises 
for bulk apples displayed on counters, 406 for those in bushels, 410 in open 
packages, and 360 bruises in wrapped packages. Similarly, Scott and Leed (89) 
noted that in 204 retail stores in Cleveland, Canton and Youngstown areas, in 
1949-50, apples in bulk averaged 46 percent more bruises than apples in consu- 
mer packages. It has been observed that open-tray packages encourage customers 
to handle apples unnecessarily (48), and that if the trays are cellophane over- 
wrapped bruising is reduced (78). 
Toothman and Anderson (101) describe equipment and give specifications 
for the tray-display of apples in retail stores. Such equipment allows clerks 
to arrange produce displays in the backroom under less hurried conditions than 
if the display must be arranged while customers are buying produce. This prac- 
tice should lessen bruise damage to apples by clerks, as well as save time for 
the clerks. 
To reduce both clerk and consumer handling, many retailers display apples 
in their original paper wraps. There is an association of wrapped apples with 
high quality, an association that customers seem to respect, and the customers 
9/ See also footnote 3, p. 134. 
148 
